


The Roots of All Goodness

by ussmckirk



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, non-graphic mentions of childhood abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 13:08:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1388794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ussmckirk/pseuds/ussmckirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The first time my stepfather hit me, I was a year younger than Joanna is now." Jim’s voice is unbearably quiet, his head lifted now, but his gaze fixed firmly on the floor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Roots of All Goodness

The Roots of all Goodness

**************************

It was his second year at The Academy, but—finally—after months of pleading, arguing, and threatening to call lawyers, Leonard had gotten Jocelyn to agree to let Joanna visit two weeks in the summer. Leonard had been preparing for his daughter’s visit like a man possessed, making sure to have all of Jo’s favorite foods stocked in the small kitchenette in his dorm room (which, thanks to his working as a doctor at Starfleet Medical in addition to attending classes, was quite a bit nicer than the shoeboxes that the regular cadets inhabited). He'd also bought her a new stuffed puppy and a bright pink umbrella with frogs on it (God, he hoped she still liked frogs. And pink.) in case it rained during her stay.

The night before she’d arrived, he’d paced around his room, intent gaze darting around nervously for something—anything—he’d forgotten to do, when Jim had come up behind up and laid a steadying hand on his shoulder.

"Relax, Bones."

"I just keep thinking there’s something I’ve forgotten that Jo’s gonna need, and—"

"Bones," Jim interrupted, smile soft but confident. "All Jo’s gonna need is you."

Leonard felt a wave of calm wash over him at the words. As the tension in his body ebbed away, an uncharacteristically goofy smile quirked his lips upward. “She did sound pretty excited during our last vidcall.”

"And she, uh…didn’t sound put out about me spending some time with you guys?" Jim lifted a hand to rub at the back of his neck awkwardly.

Leonard rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. It’s been ‘Jim, this’ and ‘Jim, that’ ever since you answered my holo and spent a half hour talking to her on my birthday.”

Jim’s eyes crinkled in the corners as he grinned, and Leonard almost suggested that they introduce the younger man to his daughter as more than just ‘Daddy’s best friend’. The two men had been together for going on eight months now, but had had only one brief conversation about their relationship. It had taken place about 3 months in when Jim had appeared in the doorframe of the bathroom as Leonard had been brushing his teeth and blurted out a nervous, “We’re doing this, right? I mean, this is a thing. You. And me. Like, we’re…together. Right?” Leonard had about choked on a mixture of toothpaste and his own spit before managing to rinse his mouth out and and ask in an high-pitched exaggeration of his regular Southern accent, “Why, Jim Kirk. Are you asking me to go steady?” 

After Leonard had stopped doing his best Scarlett O’Hara, he’d strode over to Jim, lips still covered with a bit of toothpaste foam, and kissed him soundly. “Yes, this is a thing, you idiot.”

Things had been going well—very well, Leonard thought—but neither of them had initiated a conversation about their relationship, where it was going or how serious it was, since then. 

'Daddy's best friend' seemed to be the safest bet, so that's how Leonard introduced Jim upon Joanna's arrival four days before and, just as Leonard had suspected, his daughter had really hit it off with Jim. It honestly wasn't very surprising. Jim had the exuberance and energy of a child himself, and held a innate wealth of kindness that he didn't seem to realize he possessed. Watching how much the two people he loved most in the world seemed to adore each other, filled Leonard with a happiness he hadn't felt in years. For the first time, he let himself envision Jim, Joanna and himself as something he'd never thought he'd be part of again—a family.

That’s why it hit him so hard when he discovered that, when he was out of the room, and it was just Jim and Joanna alone together, Jim acted like he was a completely different person. While Jim was caring, attentive, and affectionate toward Joanna when Leonard was with the duo, when Jim was with Joanna alone, he was remote, uninterested, and distant.

Bones first became aware of the discrepancy when had Joanna whispered a hurt, “Daddy, why does Jim sometimes not like me?” the previous night while he was tucking her in. He, of course, assured her that Jim thought she was the bee’s knees, all the time, but he made a point to watch.

And when he does, he sees that Joanna is right. That evening, he purposely excuses himself to the den to work on some paperwork, all so he can watch how Jim acts with Jo when he isn’t around. He peeks out into the living room about 20 minutes after having left, and watches Joanna run up to Jim to show him a picture she’d drawn. Jim just nods with a distracted, “That’s nice,” before turning his attention back to his PADD. Leonard's chest squeezes as Joanna’s little face falls at Jim’s dismissal. Here he’d thought that Jim really cared about Joanna and that maybe they could be a family of sorts, but all along, Jim had only been acting interested and friendly with Joanna when he was around. Jim was probably counting the days until Joanna was set to fly back to Jocelyn and he could stop pretending to care about Bones’ daughter.

Bones manages to maintain his composure when he heads back out to the living room an hour later and tells Joanna it was time for bed. It’s hard to not let his anger—and, fuck, his hurt—show when Jim gets up from the couch and sweeps Joanna into his arms with a big grin before setting her back down on her feet again. “Night, mango!” he teases her, laughing in supposed delight when Joanna, forgetting Jim’s earlier attitude, giggles. The day Jo had arrived, Jim had called her ‘Joanna Banana’ only to have Jo insist that was not her name. Jim hadn’t been deterred and had just pretended to frown. “It’s not? Hmmm…Maybe I have the wrong fruit. Is your name Apple? Guava? Kumquat?” Ever since then, Jim had been teasing Jo by calling her by the names of various fruits. Leonard had assumed Jim was doing it because it made Jo laugh, but now he realized Jim was just playing the part of ‘interested boyfriend’ in front of him so as to not rock the boat of their relationship.

Luckily Jo is beat and falls asleep before Leonard can even finish the chapter of ‘Peter Pan’ he’d been reading her.

Leonard doesn’t waste a minute. The doctor walks directly from his bedroom (where Jo’s been sleeping while she visits) to stand in front of where Jim’s lounging on the couch. His face is flushed a hot red, but his expression is reigned in—and his tone colder than it’d ever been toward Jim before.

"If you weren’t interested in spending time with Jo, you should have just told me so. You didn’t need to go acting like you….like you wanted…." Voice starting to shake, Leonard fights to keep his volume down. He didn’t want to wake Jo. "You didn’t have to fucking pretend to want to be around my kid as a way to try to, I don’t know, keep me happy or not rock the boat.”

Jim stares at him wordlessly for a few beats before slowly shaking his head. “What the hell are you talking about, Bones?”

"What I’m talking about is how my daughter asked me why you sometimes don’t like her. And how when I watched you tonight to make sure I wasn’t lying when I told her she was imagining things, I saw how you looked at her like when I wasn’t in the room and you thought I couldn’t see you…like you wished she’d just go away,” Leonard bit out.

Jim just blinks at Leonard in genuine stupefaction for several long moments before letting out the raspiest, weakest excuse for a laugh Leonard has ever heard.

Jim drops his head into his hands, and Bones stares in confusion as Jim’s shoulder’s slump and he takes on the look of a man utterly defeated. And not because his fake friendliness had been found out. The doctor begins to frown. There was clearly more going on here, though he isn’t certain what.

"Jim?" he asks, not sure what else to say. The silence between them feels heavy. It’s as if Jim isn’t even breathing, he’s so still.

Finally, the younger man releases a long, slow breath, hands clenched around the curves of his kneecaps so tightly his knuckles are white.

"The first time my stepfather hit me, I was a year younger than Joanna is now." Jim’s voice is unbearably quiet, his head lifted now, but his gaze fixed firmly on the floor. "He had always seemed…I don’t know….indifferent to me up to then. But he’d never been violent. And then one day he was working on something for his job and I started bugging him about having some cookies that I knew Mom wouldn’t have wanted me to have. He just….he smacked me across the face with the back of his hand and said…" Jim seems to shrink in on himself. "He said ‘Don’t you ever shut your damn mouth, Jimmy?’"

Leonard swallows hard, so overcome with conflicting emotions that it was difficult to get his thoughts straight. He was hurting for that little boy who thought he’d deserved to get hit for simply being a child. He felt guilty for having thought the worst of Jim. And he was so fucking angry at that sorry excuse for a man who had dared raise a hand to any child, let alone Jim.

"You’re a doctor, Bones. You did a psych rotation," Jim goes on, finally glancing at Leonard for a moment, eyes wet and pained and red around the edges. "You know kids who were abused are more likely to be abusers."

"And you were afraid to be left alone with Jo because you thought you’d, what? Turn into your stepfather? Hurt her?” Bones asks, striding forward and crouching down in front of Jim so that they’re level with each other.. “That’s a load of bullshit if I ever heard one.” He lifts one hand and, palming Jim’s cheek, forces the younger man to meet his gaze. “You don’t have that in you, Jim. You’re a damn good man—one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. You would never hurt a child.”

The tension around Jim’s eyes seems to ease ever so slightly, and he now looks more uncertain than defeated. “I’m reckless, Bones. Impulsive. Prone to acting on emotion. We both know that,” Jim argues weakly.

"Yes, you’re impulsive, Jim. You act on instinct and trust your gut," Bones concedes. "But here’s the thing, Jim. Your instincts? They are always to protect, not hurt. You throw yourself into danger without hesitation, but that’s because you’d rather lay down your life than allow an innocent to be harmed.”

Jim’s eyes water to the point where a few tears spill over, wetting the fingers Leonard still had pressed against Jim’s jaw.

"You really believe that, Bones?" Jim asks, his voice hoarse, but with a palpable note of wanting in it. He wants to believe what Bones said so badly. God, he dies. Yes, years of self-doubt and feelings of worthlessness were hard to overcome, but he trusted Bones more than anyone else, and if Bones believed these things about him, then maybe…

"You’re damn right I believe it,’ Bones answers, his voice brimming with conviction. "That baby girl is mine to keep safe, and you best believe that if I had any doubts about you being around her, you wouldn’t be." The doctor holds Jim's gaze with intent. "But the truth is, there’s no one else I’d trust to take care of my daughter more than you. To keep her safe."

Jim closes his eyes and smiles softly, looking humbled, like he’s been given something precious. ”I’d never let anyone or anything hurt her,” he promises, voice stronger.

Bones stands up then, making a slight face at the creak his knees give, before tugging Jim up to his feet in front of him. “I know, Jim. And that why you’re gonna make a damn good step-daddy to her one day. A real step-father. Not like the sorry excuse for one you had growing up.”

Jim’s eyes pop open and go almost comically wide at that remark; Leonard’s tone had been so nonchalant, as if he hadn’t just mentioned their possibly being married one day. ”Uh, excuse me?” Jim practically squawks.

Leonard just smiles, enjoying throwing Jim for a loop for once instead of the other way around. “You heard me, Darlin’.”

 

*  
A/N: Title from a Dali Lama quote


End file.
